And all of this explains why health care is so expensive. Since insurance is going to pay for our doctor bills and prescription medicine none of us ever ask a doctor what something is going to cost. The doctor, knowing we don’t care what it costs is just as likely to prescribe procedures that will satisfy us he is doing SOMETHING to help us get better, even though pain medication and time may offer the obvious cure. No one shops around for the balance of quality and cost when finding a family doctor, nor do we ever ask the pharmacy what the generic versus name brand price difference is unless we are going to be stuck with the additional cost. If we want to make health care more affordable and available to more people we need to fix our insane insurance system.
Righto.
The best analogy I’ve heard is if you got a food card when you went to work for a company. It could be used to buy food whenever you wanted, with the company’s food insurance company picking up the bill. Some restrictions on where and how you spent the money, but it could be used at both restaurants and grocery stores.
Anybody want to place a bet on how wisely people would spend “their” food insurance money?
I think you've just discovered a general principle.
Cheers!